


Coming to Terms

by libbertyjibbit



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 13:24:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17829380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libbertyjibbit/pseuds/libbertyjibbit
Summary: There's an old shoebox on the top shelf of Martin's wardrobe. It used to belong to his mother, and he has never opened it.Martin goes home and makes himself face the truth.





	Coming to Terms

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for MAG 118.

There's an old shoebox on the top shelf of Martin's wardrobe. It used to belong to his mother, and he's never opened it (the one time he'd seen her poring over its contents, young and curious and wanting to be near, she'd gone white and furious and yelled at him to get out, get out _now_ , and he'd fled the room and her anger with tears blurring his vision). He'd never wanted to open it, but tonight he has to. Feels driven to it, forced by a need to know, to see. Steels himself and reaches up, pulls it off of the shelf and takes a steadying breath before removing the lid.  
   
Photos. Dozens of them, most old and faded but a couple near the bottom that look more recent. Martin sinks to the floor in front of the wardrobe and looks through them, fascinated by parts of a life his mum had never spoken of. Here's one of a young girl, pretty but plain, grinning up at a tall man with his hand on her shoulder. Two girls swinging around by their hands, hair flying behind them, mouths open mid-laugh. A school portrait, the girl now noticeably his own mum, giving a perfunctory smile that doesn't reach her eyes. The same girl, now a young woman, holding a chubby toddler with a riot of curly hair. She looks pale but happy, smiling brightly at whoever is taking the photo, and the boy has his head buried in her neck, one bright eye peeking shyly through the curtain of her hair. Martin smiles a little, sets the photograph aside.  
   
And at the bottom, a wedding photo. It's a standard wedding portrait; the kind of thing that the newlyweds would give to parents to be put on the wall with old school pictures, if they did that sort of thing. The couple in the photo looks a little stiff, obviously posed. But they both look very happy, eyes shining and lips curved in a way that demands a response, even through a photograph.  
   
Martin traces his mother's smile with a trembling finger. He's never seen her smile like that. He has a few memories of her laughing, and one, sepia-toned and possibly imagined, of her dancing around the kitchen and singing along with the radio, but around him she has always been strained, austere, hard to please.  
   
His eyes drift towards the man in the photo. He'd forgotten what his father looked like. It's been so long since he left, and his mum didn't keep photos of him in the house as a rule. It had been so long that he'd half-hoped that Elias had been wrong. Not about his mum, because he knows - has always known - that she sees his father in him and hates him for it, even if he's never acknowledged it, but about what it is she sees. He doesn't want to share a face with the man who broke his mum's heart, and he’s always hoped, foolishly, that it is only her confusion that makes her see him in Martin.  
   
He doesn't need to look in the mirror to know that he's only been fooling himself. He knows that smile, the tilt of those eyes, even if he's never seen them that happy. He wants to be angry at the man in the photo, wants to blame him for the way his mother can barely stand to look at him; the way she hasn't been able to look at him in years. All he feels is tired.  
   
He places the photos back in the box with careful hands that only shake slightly. He thinks briefly about taking the picture of him and his mum, putting it up somewhere as proof that she did love him even if she couldn't always remember, a defense against the things that Elias had put in his head, but in the end he places it in with the rest. It would be poor protection against the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
